Email is 43 years old. GIF is 29. As much as these two get around and despite the age difference, you’d think they would have found each other… fallen in love… and made animated email babies a lot sooner. At least what’s what I thought when I opened the above email on June 17, 2016.

Eager to test if I had stumbled upon something new, I picked up my computer to show some other creatives. Everyone was impressed with Udemy’s work.

It turns out that putting animated GIFs in email is not new (silly me); but, it is growing in popularity. A web search for GIF in email marketing returns many articles from 2015 and 2016. Here is an article that provides examples of GIF emails from major online retailers.

This experience illuminated two things for me: 1) I must enjoy subscribing to boring email lists if this is the first time I’ve seen a GIF, and 2) Look at how effective it can be to merge simple ideas together. Maybe I can try this soon. Hopefully my GIFs won’t be like these.